LOS ANGELES: Firefighters held the line Tuesday against two massive wildfires that have ravaged parts of Los Angeles for the past week, even as desert winds and a dry landscape has presented extremely dangerous situations.
About 8,500 firefighters from at least seven states and two foreign countries kept the blaze from spreading for a second straight day as they gained more control over the perimeter of the blaze, which is still the size of Washington, D.C. has taken over the area.
A fleet of aircraft dropped water and retardant on the rugged hillsides while ground crews with hand tools and hoses have been working around the clock since the fire broke out on January 7, when the plane was grounded by occasional high winds. is
The Palisades fire on the city’s western edge burned 23,713 acres (96 square kilometers), and containment remained up 3 percentage points to 17 percent — a measure of how much was under control.
The Eaton fire, located in the foothills east of the city, is 35 percent contained at 14,117 acres (57 sq km) with 2 points.
Southern California hasn’t had any appreciable rain since April, turning brush into tinder as Santa Ana winds from the desert whip through mountaintops and through valleys, 2 miles (3 km) sending embers flying.
The National Weather Service said the red flag status was expected to remain in place until Wednesday when winds exceeded 50 mph (80 km/h) overnight.
Winds were lower than expected during the day on Tuesday but were forecast to peak around 3 a.m. (1100GMT) on Wednesday, with gusts possibly reaching 70mph (112kph) in the mountains, the weather service said.
California Governor Gavin Newsom said 11 new fires broke out in Southern California overnight and were quickly extinguished because firefighters and equipment were there early. But three other fires are still burning, including one each in neighboring Ventura and Riverside counties that started Monday and Tuesday, Cal Fire said.
The death toll from the fire rose to 25 on Tuesday, according to the Los Angeles medical examiner’s office. Estimates of damaged or destroyed structures stand at more than 12,000, still fueling a Herculean reconstruction effort.
Entire neighborhoods have been leveled, leaving behind smoldering ashes and rubble. In many houses, only the fireplace remains.
“It’s one thing to see it on television. It’s another thing to see it from the air. Massive, massive devastation unimaginable until now,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said at a press conference after the aerial tour. Until you actually see it.”
A few thousand more people were allowed to return home, but 88,000 remained under evacuation orders and another 84,000 under evacuation warnings – a mass displacement unprecedented in the metropolitan area’s history.
John Adolph, 48, who lost his home in Altadena in the Eaton Fire, was grateful to be safe but unsure of what lay ahead. Adolph said he went back to see what he could salvage as the fire raged.
“There were burning grocery stores, gas stations, exploding cars with glass flying … walls of flames two stories high, tornadoes of flame,” Adolph said.
Urban search and rescue teams worked from the Altadena grocery store parking lot, tracking progress on whiteboards and giving assignments from inside the trailer.
“We’re doing an organized search. The winds don’t really have a huge impact on our search and rescue operations,” said Jorge Villanueva, regional task force leader for the California Office of Emergency Services.
His team of 50 firefighters and sheriff’s deputies searched the house, looking for any lingering fires and hazards such as lithium-ion batteries attached to solar panels.
Priceless art is considered safe.
Palisades Fire also contacted the J. Paul Getty Museum’s priceless art collection, which houses paintings by Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Monet and Degas.
But the collection remained safe inside the Getty Center’s fortress of travertine stone, fireproof steel, and reinforced concrete. Kathryn E. Fleming, president of the Getty Trust, said it would be foolish to try to remove the artwork from its safe harbor. In Washington, Republicans and Democrats battled over emergency aid as wildfires are already the costliest in terms of insured losses.
Private forecaster AccuWeather estimates total damage and economic losses between $250 billion and $275 billion, making it the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, surpassing Hurricane Katrina in 2005. will
Democrats in Congress opposed a proposal by House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, to put conditions on the aid. Johnson also said any wildfire disaster relief funding must be “payback,” meaning the cost must be covered to prevent budget deficits from growing, potentially undercutting other programs. By doing
It’s a departure from many previous natural disasters, and Democratic Representative Ted Love of California called Johnson’s stance “outrageous.”
“We should not try to make new policy changes by taking advantage of the pain and suffering of our fellow Americans,” Liu said.